Justice Dept. to Probe Ferguson Police Force

By Sari Horwitz, Carol D. Leonnig and Kimberly Kindy The Washington Post
The number of police department reviews the Justice Department has initiated under Holder for possible constitutional violations is twice that of any of his predecessors. At least 34 other departments are under investigation for alleged civil rights violations.

On Labor Day, A Working Families Party Strategy

By Julie Kushner and Rafael Navar In These Times
Our aim is to build an independent base of political power that can put forward our progressive, populist values and mean it. America actually needs a political movement that can say that increasing union density is a good thing, without blushing. One that knows that declining wages and eroding retirement security are not a “new normal” we must adjust to; that market solutions are not always wise; and that an increasingly financialized economy only benefits the top.

The Most Challenging Issue Facing Liberalism Today

Timothy Noah MSNBC
Most liberals continue to pay lip service to unions and their importance to the Democratic coalition. But in private, many will tell you that they have little use for them. Julian Zelizer, a Princeton political economist, argues that the marriage between liberalism and organized labor “took a terrible turn starting in the 1970s,” when global competition moved manufacturing jobs from the unionized Northeast and Midwest to the non-union South and, ultimately, abroad.

Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault; The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin

John J. Mearsheimer Foreign Affairs
The crisis shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states that ignore it do so at their own peril. U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.